EXCERPTS FROM PATH TO ENCHANTMENT

Excerpts from.. Path to Enchantment An Artist In The Sonoran Desert DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR

The desert! The word has an electrifying effect. It conjures up visions of weird and strange things. To the uninitiated a procession of images passes across the mind's eye, bearing impressions that range from the thrilling to the chilling. Mirages like pleasant dreams: giant cactus distant mesas and mountains that flame hotly, and cool to the color of wine in the sunset before donning the ashy-blue coat of evening -carpets of poppies, verbena, penstemon, covering the earth solidly; the desert in bloom. Romance! But thenSnakes. Huge rattlers and coral snakes Gila monsters tarantulas and black widow spiders unbearable heat great wastelands of burning sand thirst, even death. Horror!Any region, the very name of which alone has the power to evoke such violently conflicting impressions upon the minds of those who have never seen it, must possess a powerful and unexplainable appeal.

The desert! A compelling word that one may come to love or hate but never to ignore. For the desert is a compelling place, unique in every aspect and in all its moods. Sunrise, midday, sunset, shifting cloud patterns, rain all combine to create the very essence of the desert mystery.

Since a mystery can never be solved (which is a blessing), the desert leaves much to the imagination. "I wonder is the beginning of a phrase often heard with respect to many things. It comes to the beholder naturally, because the place is filled with wonderment. The futility of imagination at a distance becomes obvious when the reality is faced. One must see the desert to believe. The reactions of visitors are varied and often amusing. I think of an incident that occurred some years ago when my wife and I were taking a leisurely pleasure drive on a sun-bathed day in late March.The spot we chose for a picnic lunch embodied all the elements that delight the true desert lover. Gently rolling land stretched from our position under the shade of a large old mesquite tree across sufficient miles to paint the distant mountains a gray-blue. Adobe red and Ocher earth tones of the desert floor contrasted brilliantly with the olive-green foliage of the creosote bush, the grayer green of the giant saguaro cactus, and many large colonies of both purple and light yellow-green opuntia, commonly called prickly pear. Aside from a windmill and water tank some ten miles distant, no evidence of the hand of man was apparent provided you kept your back turned on the hard road that brought you there, and the comfortable picnic table and benches that the Road Department had thoughtfully installed for your pleasure. Midway through lunch a large shining car pulled up and parked near us. Two men got out and stood looking at the view. They were dressed in eastern clothes, and looked prosperous and well fed. Their faces and arms were bronzed and reddened, the mark of an outdoor life. They looked intently and silently at the vast expanse for a full five minutes; then one turned to the other and said: "Well, what do you think of it?"

"It doesn't look like corn country to me," he replied with a slow shake of his head.

Without further comment they got in the car and drove off. The rear bumper bore a license plate marked IOWA.

The term "desert" frightens many people. A desert is a sandy parched waste of limitless area. Under the influence of a burning sun that broils the earth mercilessly, there is no vegetation except a few sorry clumps of burroweed scattered at intervals of hundreds of yards. Many perils beset the traveler who is foolhardy enough to venture into this infernal land. At intervals convenient to the horror writer (who incidentally has never been in a desert) grinning skulls and bleached bones of unfortunate souls may be found. It makes good background material for lurid western fiction, but it "jist ain't so."

The dictionary may have something to do with the commonly accepted idea of a desert. Webster's New Collegiate says: "Desert 1. A deserted region; a region left unoccupied. 2. An arid region lacking moisture to support vegetation."

In places the statements may be true. It certainly applies to great arid lands like the Sahara and even to certain very limited areas of our own American deserts. But that leaves vast expanses of land in the United States and Mexico alone to which neither definition applies. Among them are the Great Basin Desert in Nevada and Utah, the Mojave Desert, principally in California; the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico, and the State of Chihuahua in Old Mexico, and our great Sonoran desert.

All the American deserts have vegetation. The amount and varieties depend largely upon the annual rainfall and the variation in temperature. Through count-less generations, in the process of evolution, desert species have been able to adapt themselves to a bare minimum of moisture and still thrive. In regions where rainfall averages as little as three inches in a year, the number and variety of plant species are a source of never ending wonderment.

The Sonoran desert has been blessed with a multi-tude of floral riches. It is the delight, and at the same time the dismay of the visiting amateur botanist. Leaving aside for the time the many species of cactus, all of which bear blossoms at the proper season, small flowering plants occur in such nuinbers as to baffle anyone but a plant student. Then there are trees and shrubs that seem end-less when one tries to identify them. Now, the miracle of all this is that this many-faceted blanket of vegetation, which transforms an otherwise sere land into a patterned design of greenery, is able to thrive on a minimum of precipitation. It is this startling fact, more than anything else, that strikes the visitor with force. This is the desert? Why, it's green; there are trees, shrubs, even great expanses of real green pasture grass in the summer. It is not a sandy waste, after all. . . .

Our own introduction to the desert dates back to the winter of 1937. During the previous summer we had bought an abandoned farm with a rather run-down house in the Pomfret Hills of Vermont. My wife and our two pre-teen-age boys had lived in Weston, Con-necticut, in a small colony of artists and writers. One of these was the painter Ray Strang, noted for his fine oils of the desert. Before we moved to Vermont, Ray, his wife Gladys, and their son Dick settled in Arizona. They bought a place near Cortaro, consisting of forty acres of desert land containing many saguaros and having a fine view of the Santa Catalina Mountains. There was a small cottage on the place, and they lived in it until their new house was completed.

We hadn't succeeded in getting our Vermont house fit for winter occupancy during the summer and fall, so the Strangs suggested that we go to Arizona and spend the winter in the little cottage on their place.

It was early December, and the weather had remained cloudy and cold all across the country. We were still wearing overcoats when we stopped in Benson, a few miles out of Tucson, for lunch. The sun was shining brightly, and the air felt like spring. Winter, as we had known it for many years, was left behind, and with no regrets.

We had contracted colds on the long trip, but we shed them rapidly under the influence of the welcome sun. The radical change from the eastern flora to which we were accustomed none of us had been west of Minnesota before to the strange and fascinating plant forms of the desert, together with the sense of space

and the grandeur of the mountains, enchanted us almost from the beginning. Before we had been in the desert a month, we felt that this was our country. At the end of our five-month stay we were sure of it. I had arrived loaded with commitments, so for me the stay was not entirely a vacation. After a week the daily task seemed to lighten, and I ended the day without the feeling of exhaustion I had experienced at home. The clarity of the air and constant sunlight had a benign effect on my spirits. I felt a strange sense of exhilaration I had not known before. Something else struck me forcibly. From the time I was ten years old I had been plagued with headaches, as many as two or three in a week. They did not incapacitate me; they simply nagged, and made work a chore. At the end of a month of daily work, the confining occupation of drawing in black and white, I suddenly realized one day that I hadn't had a headache. It must be temporary, I thought, and I waited for the blow to strike; but it never did, and I have been free of that malady ever since. Between work and play the winter passed quickly. By the first of April I had made a complete set of pencil drawings for our good friend Dorothy, wife of the noted etcher John Taylor Arms, to illustrate her charming book Fishing Memories (Macmillan, 1938); I had also written two short stories for magazines, had done two sets of drawings for another magazine, and had made many pencil studies of the desert, besides a series of watercolor landscapes. Painting outdoors proved to be a delight. The great variation in color in the moun-real painter's country. We left the desert with regrets, knowing that it would be a long time before we could return. There would be high school and college for the boys, and, though we did not of course then know it, a war that would keep us in the East. A decade later, in 1948, we felt free to go back. The late Ernest Miller, who, with his wife, Grace, operated the Elkhorn Ranch, found a small house for us to rent in the little Mexican border village of Sasabe. Time had increased the lure of the desert, and we settled in contentedly, as though we had never left. But for several years it had to be winters only. We would leave regretfully in May and fret through the Vermont summer, undeniably beautiful as it is, impatiently awaiting September and the westward migration. Each spring when we arrived home the countryside seemed a little smaller. The hills seemed to have shrunk; the foliage on the trees seemed twice as thick as before. Then there were those gloomy days, days of semilight when it didn't rain, but when the sun failed to come out. They seemed endless. It was fatal for a painter. One day my wife said to me, pointing to a huge old maple near the house, "Do those branches seem to be reaching down to grab you?" She had hit it right on the nose! It was what had been bothering me right along, but I hadn't put it in words. Of course the New England hills hadn't shrunk; it was just that our outlook had expanded. "They sure do, honey," I replied. "Let's face it: we're just desert rats at heart. Let's sell out and move." We settled our affairs in June of 1956, and on an early morning pointed the nose of the car toward the desert. When we saw the first saguaros, and a roadrunner darted in front of us, we felt that we were truly home.

William J. Schaldach Path to Enchantment An Artist in the Sonoran Desert

There is a powerful magnet in the Southwest called the Sonoran Desert. This world of rugged beauty, dry climate, fantastic vegetation, and brilliant sunshine includes much of Southern Arizona, as well as the state of Sonora, Mexico, and Baja California. To it are attracted every year an increasing number of visitors. Some of them decide that there is nothing like plenty of a good thing, and they make it their home. Others return year after year to this enchanted land. Now William J.Schaldach tells you why the desert is a place to be cherished and how, when you travel in it, you can realize its intense pleasures. Besides a fact-filled text of 16 chapters, 226 pages, the book is superbly illustrated with 176 original drawings in pencil and pen and ink. The author's enthusiasm for the desert's ever-changing colors and his knowledge of its strange flora and fauna are apparent on every page. Among the subjects he covers are: the desert and is nature; the Mexican people; the Seri Indians; the Gulf of California; the ancient dwellers of the desert the Hohokam Indians; trees and shrubs; cacti and other exotic plants; flowers; mammals; land and water birds; a brief account of Padre Kino and his missions; snakes, scorpions, and lizards; ghost towns and camping, and game-bird gunning.

Schaldach tells you why the desert is a place to be cherished and how, when you travel in it, you can realize its intense pleasures. Besides a fact-filled text of 16 chapters, 226 pages, the book is superbly illustrated with 176 original drawings in pencil and pen and ink. The author's enthusiasm for the desert's ever-changing colors and his knowledge of its strange flora and fauna are apparent on every page. Among the subjects he covers are: the desert and is nature; the Mexican people; the Seri Indians; the Gulf of California; the ancient dwellers of the desert the Hohokam Indians; trees and shrubs; cacti and other exotic plants; flowers; mammals; land and water birds; a brief account of Padre Kino and his missions; snakes, scorpions, and lizards; ghost towns and camping, and game-bird gunning.

William J. Schaldach is an artist, a writer, and a lover of the desert. His paintings sell widely in the Southwest and his work is in the permanent collections of several museums includ-ing that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Library of Congress. Widely known as a writer on fishing and hunting subjects, he is the author of six books including Carl Rungius, a biography of the greatest of all American painters of wild life. He has had articles published in many magazines. For more than twenty years the author has lived and traveled widely in the Sonoran Desert, as a painter, an amateur archeologist, and a sportsman. His home is in Tubac, Arizona.

PATH TO ENCHANTMENT, published by The Macmillan Company, is available wherever fine books are sold. Readers of this publication who do not have book store facilities available can order direct from us. Address: ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, 2039 W. Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona, 85009. The price is $10.00.

ABOUT THE BOOK AND THE AUTHOR NOTES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

OPPOSITE PAGE "IN WICKENBURG'S DESERT FOOTHILLS" BY CARL GLASSENHART. Winter visitors at Wickenburg's guest ranches find daily rides in the desert both invigorating and restful. Many of them agree that the best way to come to know and love the desert is from the back of a horse.

FOLLOWING PAGES "DESERT SLOPE" BY JOSEF MUENCH. Photo was taken from the slopes of Tonto National Monument along the Apache Trail overlooking Roosevelt Lake Basin.

"IN TONTO NATIONAL MONUMENT" BY ROBERT E. LINDHOLM. Photo was taken on the trail winding up a steep hillside leading up to the pre-historic Indian cliff dwellings of Tonto National Monument.

"CASCADE OF SPRING COLOR" BY EARL KING. Desert terrain bare and often harsh-looking most of the year, can be almost radiantly beautiful when winter and early spring rains bring to life a myriad of wild flower seeds. Such scenes as this are some of the surprises the desert can offer.

"DESERT LANDSCAPE" BY HUBERT A. LOWMAN. Photo was taken about two hundred yards north of the Visitor Center in Saguaro National Monument near Tucson. Rather warm lighting effect results from lateness of the hour when picture was taken.

"BRAVE CHOLLA SOLDIERS" BY DONALD W. VALENTINE. This picture was taken just a few miles north-east of Apache Junction on Arizona 88, better known as the Apache Trail. The cacti are the familiar (and hazardous) Teddy Bear cholla, the mountains are the Superstitions.

"DESERT VARIETIES" BY JOSEF MUENCH. Photo was taken in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument with the Ajo Mountains in background. Prickly pear cactus, just ready to bloom, the strange saguaros and organ pipes are all touched by the mellow light of the low sun among the Ajo Mountains in a wonderful arboreal desert region. 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.18 at 1/25th sec.; 6" Schneider Xenar lens; April; late afternoon.

CENTER PANEL "THE RAINS ARE COMING" BY DONALD W. VALENTINE. This picture was taken along a little gravel road that winds northward from Arizona 86 near Quijotoa, west of Tucson. The photographer says: "This picture was taken on Christmas Eve, 1960, and it is one I shall never forget. The clouds had been spectacular all day, but late in the day they became heavy with moisture and filled in the sky completely. Looking like dark, saturated sponges, they mystified us with their ability ability to remain air-borne and adrift.

"THE MARCHING SAGUAROS" BY RAY MANLEY. Photo taken in the new addition to Saguaro National Monument, fifteen miles east of Tucson and just north of Old Tucson and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

"HEDGEHOG IN SPRING BONNETS" BY EARL E. PETROFF. Photograph taken a few miles east of Fish Creek Hill off Arizona 88 (Apache Trail). In the foreground a hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus engelmannii) appears in radiant dress.

"DESERT EVENING PASTEL" BY RICHARD JEFFERSON. One can never really appreciate the quiet beauty of the desert until he or she has experienced a desert sunset in all its splendor. No two desert sunsets are ever alike.

"A DESERT DAY IS ENDING" BY RICHARD JEFFERSON. Some of the most brilliant desert sunsets are to be seen in late summer when summer storm clouds people the sky. This photograph and the one above were taken in the desert near Tucson.

"A CRIMSON DESERT SKY" BY JOSEF MUENCH. Photo taken in the desert near Apache Junction. Colorful skies at evening seem to take on new dimensions of interest when the strangely shaped saguaros are silhouetted against the tinted clouds. 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.11 at 1/25th sec.; 6" Xenar lens; March.